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I'm in a bit of a weird position, and I wanted some feedback on my approach to bidding for OCI and the upcoming hiring season. I'm in the MVPBDCN or whatever acronym is appropriate for lower T13 range, slightly below median that should probably be construed as within one standard deviation of whatever the median GPA is for my school, and I'm almost halfway through a 1L SA in a secondary market I'd like where an offer to return isn't necessarily guaranteed, but the last five years of 1L SAs have gotten offers to return for a 2L SA. I'm very fortunate to be in this position because I think I've done well enough to get an offer at my current firm at the end of the summer, and I will continue working toward getting an offer from my current firm that would definitely provide some added security in the hiring process when OCI rolls around. But I still want to give myself as many options as possible when gunning for 2L SAs, especially since my current secondary market is one of several places I'd be interested in practicing.

I have fairly significant work experience before law school, and I'm patent bar eligible looking to do patent lit. I will be participating in Loyola and my school's OCI as well.

I'm interested in my current secondary market and another smaller secondary market, but also interested in DC for personal reasons. Given I potentially have some insurance with an offer coming out of this summer, can I bid DC more aggressively than I should otherwise given my very mediocre grades? I'll be hitting all the relevant secondary market firms at Loyola, and mass mailing any remaining firms not at Loyola in those markets, and I filled the rest of my Loyola bid list with DC firms. I also contrasted Loyola bid list with my school's OCI firms to make sure I hit firms that will be at Loyola but not at my OCI and vice versa.

I just feel like I've tried to maximize every bid as best I can, have worked extensively with my CSO/OCS on my lists, but I still feel uncomfortable bidding DC/NoVA heavily because my law school grades are decidedly not otherwise great for DC. For the record, I know the credited advice for someone in my position is typically to target NYC heavily to make sure I don't strike out, but I have zero desire to end up in NYC. I won't be bidding a single NYC firm, even though that is the best advice for someone in my position under normal "I just want a job" logic. I realize that sounds stupid, but for personal reasons that I don't want to reveal, ending up without a 2L SA would be better for me than doing a 2L SA in NYC (as unlikely as that is given my current SA situation). You can tell me how dumb that is all day long, and I accept that NYC would be the safer play for getting SA offers, but I'm just not going down that road. TLS may try to read into this, and I accept that, but just understand no amount of people convincing me to bid NYC would work. I'm fortunate enough financially to be able to make that decision.

So my underlying question is, given my current situation, can I afford to bid DC aggressively at OCI, while crafting my bid list to avoid the more grade conscious firms in DC that would laugh when they saw my transcript?